Dinniman wants smaller trustees' board at Penn State

WEST CHESTER —A state lawmaker from Chester County is attempting to influence Penn State’s leadership structure with a bill that would decrease the size of its Board of Trustees from 32 members to 21.

The bill, introduced Friday by state Sen. Andy Dinniman, D-19th Dist., is an attempt to revise the legal statute that established the university’s board in 1855. The last time it was revised was in 1939.

Recent events at Penn State involving child sex abuse have shown the need for the university’s board to be more independent and clearly above the university’s administration, Dinniman said, so his bill would also remove the position of university president from the Penn State Board of Trustees.

“Streamlining Penn State’s Board of Trustees will help on both fronts,” Dinniman said. “Having too many bosses does not work in the business world, and it does not work in the academic world, either. Thirty-two people on the university’s Board of Trustees are too many bosses.”

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Dinniman, a Penn State alumnus who graduated in 1978 with a doctoral degree in education, said his bill relied on a report written by Jack Wagner, Auditor General, titled “Recommendations for governance reform at The Pennsylvania State University after the child sex abuse scandal.”

The report recommends that the commonwealth’s General Assembly should reduce the board from 32 voting members to 22 members, one of them nonvoting, as well as changing the way business and industry members are elected.

According to the report, out of the universities in the Big Ten Conference, Pennsylvania State University currently has the most members on its board. Ohio State University has 19, with two nonvoting; University of Wisconsin has 18; University of Illinois and University of Minnesota has 13, with at least one nonvoting; University of Nebraska has 12, with four nonvoting; Purdue University has 10 members; and the remaining universities only have nine board members.

“The change has to start at the top,” Dinniman said. “Penn State’s leadership must be responsive all the time and especially in times of crises. And as minority chairman of the Senate Education Committee, I know Penn State leadership must also be responsive to changes in higher education if it is to keep offering its students an education that is affordable today and of great value tomorrow.”

Dinniman’s bill will also do the following:

• Reduce the allotment of members on the board that the governor appoints (from 6 to 4) and the three representative groups elect: alumni (from 9 to 6), county agricultural societies (from 6 to 4) and business and industry groups (from 6 to 4).

• Change the status of the governor from a voting to a non-voting member.

• Prohibit the president of the university from serving as a trustee, as the secretary or other officer of the board or on any committees of the board.

• Clarify that emeriti board members are honorary and do not have the right to vote or participate in board discussions in the same way as statutory board members.

• Change the quorum requirement from 7 voting members to a majority of voting members (11 of 21).

• Put Penn State’s board and administration under the Public Official and Employee Ethics Act.

“I’m sure they’ll be those who want to keep the current structure,” said Dinniman. “There are interests who are happy with the way things are.”

Dinniman also said that he hopes the bill’s introduction will further foster dialogue about the issue for many months to come.

“My bill is designed to assure a government board fit and proper for one of the great universities of our nation and indeed the world,” Dinniman said. “I take great pride in my alma mater and like others have been hurt by the events of the past couple years. But it would be an even greater shame if we do not learn from the mistakes that were made and if we do not take this opportunity to change and strengthen how the university operates.”